Venus Williams speaks with Sports Illustrated about her Keep Her Confident Campaign. The all-time great tennis champion is committed to building the confidence of young women and increasing their participation in sports.
Category
🥇
SportsTranscript
00:00 You are clearly such an incredible role model to all of these young women. Tell us a little bit
00:04 more about the Keep Her Confident campaign, the Dove Self-Esteem Project, and what it means to you.
00:08 Yes, absolutely. The Keep Her Confident campaign, it's all about keeping girls in sports.
00:13 45% of girls drop out of sports before the age of 14 globally. That number is way too big,
00:19 and most people don't know that. So we're training the coaches to make sure that they're able to
00:25 instill that confidence in girls, and we're keeping them in sports and giving them that
00:29 opportunity to just shine and live their best life through the lens of sports. You know, I've heard
00:34 you say before that saying to yourself, "I can't do it, and I can do it," takes the same amount of
00:39 time and energy. Where does that kind of mental discipline come from, and how do you hope to
00:44 instill that attitude in these young women? Obviously from sports and from my parents.
00:49 And you have to build a strong will to stay in sports, and not only to stay in sports, but to
00:55 play well. So if you want to play well, then you've got to build that mentality, and you build that
01:01 mentality from being in sports, and then that mentality goes on to the rest of your life.
01:05 So it is so important to feel good about you, and sports can do that.
01:09 You mentioned that statistic about girls and boys globally. You know, how do you hope an
01:15 initiative and project like this helps kind of change the future of women in athletics?
01:19 There's two parts to that. So the first part is education. Most of us don't know that. We don't
01:24 wake up in the morning saying, "Oh my gosh, 45% of girls under 14 are dropping out of sports."
01:28 It's insane.
01:29 We have to think about it. Second is also training and education. Training and educating coaches
01:34 to coach their girls in the right way. You're a big role model when you're a coach. You are a big
01:42 part of that girl's life, and you have to guide her in the right way. So those two things are
01:47 going to be huge to change this. Absolutely. You know, you also mentioned your family a
01:51 little bit. Obviously, you have your own incredible story of the things you overcame to reach your
01:55 dreams. You know, when you look at something like this, does it ever kind of hit you, this like
02:01 full circle moment at all? Like you were a young female athlete, and now you get to do things like
02:05 this. Does it feel really cool? Because it should be. It's amazing.
02:08 Honestly, it's beyond my dreams. I just wanted to win a tournament or two. Hopefully that
02:12 tournament was like Wimbledon or US Open or something like that.
02:14 I think you did pretty good.
02:15 One of those or two or more. And so this is, when you're growing up,
02:19 this is not a part of your dream that you'll have an opportunity to meet other young people,
02:24 to give them your life experience that you've learned so much from and pass on that information
02:31 and knowledge. You don't know any of that's coming. So I'm grateful to have had all those
02:35 experiences. Well, it's a really incredible event. Thank you so much for your time. And
02:40 I'm sure these girls really appreciate it as well. Thank you.